FOWD looks at current trends in web development and their association with other media, such as fine art, and tries to predict where the Web is going in the future. It’s a conference aimed at the web standards crowd, including both designers and developers – as a developer, I’m always inspired by great design, and this conference has some great examples.
Patrick McNeil from Design Meltdown presented “Finding Inspiration For Design” which talked about using inspiration from direct sources, such as fine art, billboards and commercials. Examples were shown which draw the user in to the website with cut-out style pictures that invade the user’s phyiscal space. Patrick also talked about current trends such as the colour brown and super-sized text. He briefly talked about potential future trends. He mentioned the use of pastel colours, which I agree with, but I don’t think horizontal-scrolling websites and video-heavy websites will be globally successful, but will work in some niche markets – especially in marketing and design portfolio websites.
Andy Clarke & Steve Pearce debated whether ‘User Experience’ and ‘Brand Experience’ had to be mutally exclusive. I didn’t really get much out of this segment and it didn’t seem very well polished. However, Steve’s slides were extremely cute and unique. Jeremy Keith sums up Steve’s presentation very well saying:
An experience iceberg. The visual part sits above the surface (what most people see) but the main part (that people interact with) is below the surface. We spend too long focusing on the bit above the surface. It doesn’t matter how much you polish the visible bit if it’s a wreck underneath. Basically, you can’t polish a turd …or a turdy iceberg. Instead we should work on the experience, which is the stuff under the surface. The reason we should work on this is that users will spread the word about good and bad experiences.
Andy Budd talked more about user experience with his presentation entitled “Designing the User Experience Curve”. Andy’s talk was an interesting insight in to the minds of users, and how they not only compare your website’s experience to other websites they’ve used, but also to real-world scenarios. Andy talked about the attention to detail, user feedback and making the experience fun. Users remember details and often mention them if they talk (promote) your product or service. Real-world examples include good concierge service and a Innocent Smoothie making you smile with the words “Stop looking at my bottom” on the underside of the carton. Moo, a printing company, has this attention to detail – they use quirky personalities in their automated emails – users remember good details and recommend such services, like I’ve just done!
Elliot Jay Stocks talked on “Print is the new web”, making comparisons between what is available for the print industry (white-space, unusual layouts and breaking grid systems) and what is limited on the web. Also comparing the different styles employed in Flash design to HTML/CSS and that each industry should beinfluenced by each other.
Jon Hicks, who doesn’t want to be famous for designing the Firefox logo, walked through building a basic website from scratch in to a workable template using HTML and CSS in his presentation “From Design to Deployment”. I felt this presentation was a little out of sync with the rest of the day, being more practical than design theory. However, I learned a couple of gems which I will now apply to my web development. A tip I’d like to pass on is: use both the full name and PostScript name of your fonts to make sure the font will work in both Safari and Firefox – Guillermo Esteves has more information about this.
Paul Farnell went through some of the “Unconventional ways to promote your site” with experience and examples from promoting his web application. This was the first time I’ve seen Paul speak and he communicated his ideas very well. Most of the tips can be applied to every website you build, and so this was a very useful presentation.
Daniel Burka who works on two large community-based websites, Digg and Pownce, presented “Evolving the User Experience”, continuing the theme of the day. Many of the things Daniel talked about, such as iteration and community feedback were very useful and insightful because of the community applications he works on. However, I do not think this was the correct target audience for this information as I doubt the majority of people have the traffic, scaling issues and community of these sites. This was an interesting talk but I felt nothing which was really of use for me.
Overall, like last year, although I didn’t necessarily learn a lot, I came away from the conference with a renewed passion for the Web, and couldn’t wait to get back to a computer and start tinkering with ideas which welled up throughout the day.
Going to conferences is a great way to rejuvenate interest and interact with enthusastic colleagues. I always come away with at least one new idea I think could work and this time was no exception.
]]>The New Agila is smart and sexy – the ideal urban runaround. It’s small enough to fit into the tightest of spaces yet spacious enough to seat five people and their luggage. It is aimed at a slightly different, mainly female, market and with this in mind we came up with the concept of a fashion conscious woman’s magazine for the basis of the press kit.
The size, styling and spoof ads inside all contributed to the look and feel we were after. The whole thing, including the CD which was cleverly held on the inside cover, was then sealed in a glossy film sleeve to finish it off.
The launch team were very pleased with the finished result and everyone at Creation is looking forward to coming up with more creative solutions for Vauxhall.
]]>The film contains interviews and opinion from many of the calligraphers, typographers and designers who have been involved with the creation of, use of and rebellion against Helvetica.
Thoroughly enjoyed the film and all the extra interview material. It was a rare opportunity to hear what generations of typographers and designers think of Helvetica and how they see its role. Eric Spiekermann, Matthew Carter and of course the legendary Hermann Zapf were truly inspiring.
I love Helvetica. It is such a versatile font family but I can see the need to express personality through typography and therefore, the necessity to choose appropriate fonts and encourage new type design. The big questions are will there be another Helvetica and will there be a sequel to this movie?
As a web developer I do not interact with different fonts on a daily basis, however, I do appreciate good typography. This film was a good introduction in to the most important typeface in todays society. The film follows the timeline of the font, from it’s inception 50 years ago, through a rebellion period and emerging as the ‘defecto’ font in everyday society (whether you realise it or not!).
I felt some parts of the film put too much emphasis on the importance of the font in relation to globalisation, commercialism and politics – even relating the font to the Vietnam war and the current invasion of Iraq. However, the segments by Erik Spiekermann, Experimental Jetset and Michael C. Place were interesting and educational without being pretentious.
The film is well shot and the cinematography of the stills which artfully reveal the use of the font all around us are beautiful.
More information about the film is available at helveticafilm.com
]]>Microformats were first announced over two years ago and since then have gained massive traction as developers simply started modifying their existing infrastructure to include this extra data. The tech industry major players all agree on the importance of Microformats. At Mix06, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates stated “We need Microformats”. Since then, Yahoo! has integrated Microformats in to literally millions of pages. Yahoo! Local supports hCards, hCalendars and hReviews and Yahoo! acquisitions Flickr and Upcoming support hCards and events respectively.
We understand the importance of Microformats here at Creation. Our profile pages contain hCards. Our hot topics, news articles and comments are all marked up with hAtom, which allows users to subscribe to these pages and their changes automatically.
All of our web packages contain Microformats to varying degrees. Each page on our packages uses the hAtom syntax and your company details are marked up as a hCard. If you use address module (available in GoActive packages and above), more information is added, including address and telephone number – this information can be exported to vCard-compatible address management tools, such as Outlook or Address Book for the Mac.
If you use or buy one of our web packages (or any custom website) you’ll understand the immediate advantages of Microformats this coming year. Browser manufactures are integrating features which will make interacting with Microformat-enabled websites a breeze. Look out for these features in the upcoming Firefox 3 and the next Internet Explorer.
]]>If you are not sure, an e-shot is the electronic equivalent of direct mail (or a Christmas card), sent and received as an email. So when you receive an email containing pictures and graphics which may even look like a website, that’s an e-shot. Recipients of an e-shot are usually your current customers or anyone who has requested regular updates. An e-shot can take many forms, perhaps a simple news bulletin, seasonal greetings, a marketing message or a more detailed e-zine type e-newsletter. The advantages of using this medium to contact your customers are the speed a campaign can be created, the cost effectiveness and the ability to monitor the success of your campaign.
We have developed a low cost offer to allow everyone to send a Christmas e-shot for only £197. Simply choose from one of the three e-shot designs, supply us with your text, logo and list of up to 500 recipients and we’ll do the rest. Once the campaign has been sent you will be given access to your own online area to check and monitor your campaign statistics. If you would like to increase the number of recipients we can do that for you too for marginal cost. We can also customise the standard e-shots designs a little or even create your very own totally custom design from £595.
So – you could replace your current Christmas card routine with our Christmas e-shot and save money on design, printing, packing and postage. As well as reducing your carbon footprint. Or send out a Christmas e-shot as and addition to tell your customers about Christmas opening and closing times, other seasonal variations in service or even special offers. Then for just an extra £45 we could resend the same campaign for you to make sure everyone has seen and noted the content.
The whole thing could be turned around within 24 hours for you, so none of those last minute panics.
You can email or call me on 01785 716136 if you would like to find out more about Christmas e-shot design or anything else to do with e-marketing.
]]>The Winning Business exhibition is open from 8.00am until 5.00pm and takes place in the Ballroom, Lounge, Hamilton Suite and Missanda Suite with over 100 top businesses represented. Creation are sharing stand 83 with Chase Promotions in the Ballroom if you would like to drop by and see us and find out more about our design and web development services.
A Winning Business Think Local Exhibition 2007 catalogue will be available to you on the day containing details of all the exhibitors. There are also free business skills and training workshops and of course the opportunity to network with hundreds of other local businesses.
The whole event has been organised by Think Local, East Staffordshire Borough Council, Lichfield District Council, Tamworth Borough Council and Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Representatives from them all will be on hand during the day to offer expert help and advice for companies looking to develop their marketing effectiveness and tackle other key issues affecting their business.
See you there!
]]>The SEO industry helps companies with a web presence achieve better rankings within search engines. There are a lot of different methods used by SEO companies. Some of these can improve your rankings. Others, however, can adversely affect your business.
A lot of the reasons behind using a company specialising in SEO no longer apply in the web-standards based development environment. Our web packages are built with all the best practices in mind. Because of this, large, expensive and involved after-market SEO campaigns are almost always unnecessary and usually have very little impact on your search enginge ranking.
Our web packages employ numerous techniques which help your site gain good results in search engines from day one. We use the following techniques to help you achieve good search engine rankings:
Our web packages are built using the latest web standards best practices. The templates use semantic HTML and are styled with CSS. Microformats are also used throughout the packages. All of these factors help search engines understand your content and allow them to process the information better.
Our web packages automatically generate XML sitemaps for your entire site. When we complete your website, we also submit them to Google and Yahoo! This helps search engines find your site and all your pages. If your website is brand new, this is a great starting point, especially if your website does not have any incoming links.
Our web packages also generate your page URLs based on the title of your page. This has a threefold effect. Firstly, it means the URLs are easy to read, understand and remember. Secondly, because the URLs are based on your page title, the keywords of each page are duplicated. Finally, search engines emphasise words within the URL, so your keywords are even stronger.
Every website we build, whether it’s a web package or completely custom, features all these SEO-based techniques.
There are two other influential factors which will help make your SEO campaign a success. First of all we can advise on the content for your site – remember content is king. And we can also help you build links to your website because the more ways search engines can find your site the better! These two factors will have the biggest impact in your search engine ranking.
If you wish to find out more, please get in touch.
]]>I remember when Bradford and Bingley were two middle-aged gentlemen in pinstripe suits and bowler hats, presumably because only ‘business men’ have bank accounts - right? The latest face of Bradford & Bingley is an attractive and friendly young woman in a lime green shirt and, of course, a bowler hat - which is now just for comedy effect, oh and brand recognition. Perfectly approachable and without a whiff of stock-market or Financial Times about her.
I have put together some points about re-branding, really in terms of the evolution of an existing corporate ID rather than a total corporate rebirth, to help you determine whether it’s time for a fresh set of clothes.
It is a common concern that change could put a lot of goodwill and customer loyalty at risk. I would not condone a re-brand that was a complete U-turn unless the current brand was obviously turning customers away. These days people expect improvements to products and services which cater evermore specifically to the needs of the individual. A modest brand makeover could actually help to reinforce existing customer loyalty by contributing to ‘post purchase justification’ and ultimately attract new ones.
What better reason could there be? The knock-on effect of a complete re-brand is undoubtedly a lengthy and costly exercise. My advice here would be evolve the brand over time and introduce changes in smaller steps - this way the cost of the new look would be built into the next print run or advert placement, website update or exhibition in such a way that two generations of corporate ID could co-exist and retain synergy. Car manufacturers constantly introduce ‘evolutionary’ style changes across their model range without letting a single model become the black sheep.
I would be the first to agree that this is a strong argument against a wash and brush up. This attitude suggests that you are obviously doing something right - for now. However, in any marketplace expectations are constantly rising and it is always prudent to keep a close eye on the competition.
I’ve heard this argument many times and usually goes hand in hand with acute niché markets or the very naive. If you are lucky enough to have a product or service that wouldn’t benefit from a clear brand, marketing plan or customer focused service standards then keep up the good work. As for the rest, you probably won’t need to use your seat-belt on the way home either.
Well have you? This mindset might strike fear into the heart of a supplier who’s hanging on for that ‘check in the post’ but if you feel you have found a great name and can provide real value and meaning to your product or service this could be exactly what your brand needs. You can advertise your re-brand as a celebration of success, and at the same time attract interest away from the competition.
It is difficult to attribute success to any single influence. The quality of your product or service, customer brand loyalty, the effectiveness in which you communicate to your market and how you compare to the competition are just a few of the factors that contribute to securing a sale. But I would always prefer to make a good impression when I take my brand to market, than hope no-one notices it.
]]>For most colleges there are two major publications each year, the part time guide and the full time guide. The part time guide is usually published during the Summer term for the intake of part time students in September of the same year. The full time guide is completed and printed over the Summer or early in the Autumn term. This guide is then sent out and made available to potential students joining the college in September the following year. This poses a few presentation problems for colleges as you have two publications initially out at similar times but overlapping with each other during previous and following years. However, if a design strategy is in place for organic development of design styles the college branding is upheld and publications happily blend from one to another. This is something we try to implement with everything we do for our college clients.
With a few colleges we have managed to build a long standing relationship and help them at every step of the way. This consistency and commitment from us to always give the very best has paid dividends, with exceptional inspection reports and positive feedback from both students and staff. This commitment and dedication is something we offer all our clients, after all, creating the perfect solution is always our goal.
Creation has worked with a long list of colleges over the years, completing almost 700 education projects. These include corporate ID, course guides, part-time guides, full-time guides, diaries, websites, international publications, advertising, display panels, posters, photography, signage, touchscreens and a whole lot more. As you can see we have masses of experience in the education sector and can always offer the best, most efficient solution to any problem. We are finding more and more that new technology and techniques are paving the way to cost effective solutions with online developments providing the key.
If you would like to find out more about how you can benefit from our education experience just drop me an email leigh@creation.uk.com.
]]>Jared Spool opened the conference with his enthusiastic, engaging and entertaining presentation entitled “The Dawning of the Age of Experience”. Jared talked about the iPod (as did almost every presentation). The iPod isn’t the best MP3 player technologically speaking, but because the user experience is so rich the device is by far the highest selling product in the market. The iPod doesn’t have all the features other MP3 players have, but functionality commonly found on other devices has been cleverly moved to iTunes. More often than not you manage your music on a computer and Apple has recognised this behaviour. They have moved such functionality to iTunes leaving the iPod less cluttered and easier to use – all which lead to great user experience. This great user experience is something you should be building in to every service you provide.
Jared also compared Netflix, a relatively new online-only movie rental company, to Blockbuster, the well established DVD rental company, with over five-thousand stores in the US alone. Over recent years Netflix has become twice as large as Blockbuster. But they don’t advertise and they don’t have retail stores, so why have they become so successful? They found out 85% of existing customers had a friend recommend the service to them. Because they spend their money of designing their website and improving user experience, they do not need conventional marketing to become extremely successful. User experience makes and breaks products and services.
Jared was followed by another American, Peter Merholz, who works for Adaptive Path and talked on the subject of “Experience Strategies”. Peter started with a history lesson about camera development in the late eighteen-hundreds.
Up to the turn of the nineteenth century, photography wasn’t very accessible, requiring complex understanding of fundamentals and needing seventeen steps to complete the process. Kodak developed a “3 step camera” and their slogan was “You press the button, we do the rest”. Kodak didn’t change how photographs were developed, they simply recognised that the user should not need to know this information to take photographs. All the user had to do was push the button and send the film off, Kodak then did the rest. And because of this user experience Kodak have been the premier brand in the photography industry for over one hundred years.
Secondly Peter talked about a pyramid of product evolution:
All these steps are required and each is important, but the user experience can either ruin or make the product a great success.
The first two presentations complemented each other perfectly. Peter referenced and expanded upon information which Jared had just talked about and the two speaker styles fitted together very well. Both speakers were engaging, knowledgeable and able to communicate their experience extremely well.
After lunch Jeremy Keith, one of the event organisers, introduced Cameron Moll for the so-called “graveyard-watch”, in which he presented “Good vs. Great Design”. Cameron talked about choices which distinguish great design from good design and stated that this contributes to user experience because “great design yields meaningful communication”. Cameron posed the following question, which I felt was intriguing…
Using a microwave, which takes less time?
- Heating water for one minute and ten seconds?
- Heating it for one minute and eleven seconds?
A trick question? Partially. Below this question Cameron stated “User productivity trumps machine productivity”. Although it maybe quicker for the machine (microwave), the overall process for the user is slower. In choice one the user has to locate two buttons, 1 and zero, which are usually positioned away from each other. The second choice requires one button, and therefore is quicker for the user. This is very important to remember when developing any software applications, you should think about user efficiency over the ease of programming.
Finally, the conference finished with Tom Coates, a former employee at the BBC who is currently heading up a very interesting research project called FireEagle at Brickhouse Yahoo!. Tom talked on the most technical-orientated subject of the day in his presentation “Designing for a Web of Data”.
I am very interested in the ‘web of data’ idea – all of the possibilities and phenomenal potential it contains. I believe this topic will be a huge part of the internet in the next few years. If you are intrigued I highly recommend viewing Tom’s other presentation on the subject “Native to a Web of Data”. You can view the slides and listen to the audio from the presentation which I watched at The Future of Web Apps in early 2006.
Leisa Reichelt presented “Waterfall Bad, Washing Machine Good” in which she talked about project development methodologies, discussing the differences between sequential methodologies and ‘iterative, incremental and collaborative/cross-disciplinary methodologies’. The talk was more project-management orientated, but enlighten the benefits of Agile and User Centred Design (UCD) practices.
George Oates and Denise Wilton had an informal chat on the sofa entitled “Human Traffic”. These two talked about the processes their respective companies go through when making design and interface choices and how they are handled in the fast response/feedback nature of the internet. Personally, this was my least favourite talk of the conference.
“The Experience Stack” presented by Matt Webb was an interesting talk. Matt threw away common presentation structure and gave a sporadic and sprawling talk about ‘experience’. I felt some of the slides were confusing and because of the unrelated nature of the presentation, understanding the overall premise was difficult. Matt has understood there was a problem with his talk but has tried to address this in an article called The Experience Stack revisited. Matt has put his slides online with extensive notes.
Overall I really enjoyed the conference and thought it was a great success. Andy Budd, one of the organisers, summed up the conference and mentioned what I felt about conferences in general:
The best conferences I find are always the ones that try to inspire rather than educate. … [we] walked into the office this morning with a renewed interest in our field and a desire to try out some new techniques and ideas. I hope you felt the same way.
I did.
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